World War II on TV

[chips and gravy]

I have discovered that at any given time on cable TV there is a programme about World War II. In particular the History Channel and UK History should be dubbed the Hitler Channels 1 and 2.

Anyone would think that there isn't any other history! Is there really such a huge demand for these shows.

 

[Theatre of Trees]

I would imagine that it is more to do with stock footage than anything else. Newsreel cameras were everywhere during WW2 which thus makes it easier to get a point across. Beyond that you are relying on reconstruction or ruins hence the lack of available programmes on medieval stuff.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

The first law of multichannel tv is there are only two allowable subjects for history programming, WW2 and the Egyptians.

 

[Brovion]

Don't forget the Tudors.

 

[perth seagull]

I've always found the lack of WWI coverage a bit of a shame, WWII is always in the limelight.

 

[fatbadger]

I would imagine that it is more to do with stock footage than anything else. Newsreel cameras were everywhere during WW2 which thus makes it easier to get a point across. Beyond that you are relying on reconstruction or ruins hence the lack of available programmes on medieval stuff.

Well, it is at least partly about the amount of footage available, but not really about the ease of 'getting the point across' - it's rather about how cheap it is when the film already exists. Covering anything earlier requires new filming, whether of historians pontificating or of reconstructions.

Also, WWII has not really yet become a serious issue of debate. Obviously, some debates have arisen around it, such as why it started, but, in the main, it's fairly uncontentious. We 'know' who the baddies are, and we 'know' who the goodies are (with the possible exception of the issue regarding the near-systematic writing out of the Soviet Union from the narrative during the seventies and eighties). Not controversial = not upsetting people.

Compare this with, say, the reigns and disputes/wars of Mary I, Elizabeth I, both Charles I & II and both James I & II. Boy, can you upset people with those issues.

Granted, those eras do get a little coverage - but generally only of the banal and uncontentious issues. Doing any proper history on these eras involves very contentious issues which upset a lot of people (I am not including Tristam Hunt's travesty a few years back). So, it's easier to not do it.

The only period which seems to get much coverage other than WWII is the Victorian period. Even then, however, it's always about little 'interesting' corners of the map - very important, and very worthwhile, to be sure - but not any 'grand sweep' questions.

As for Simon Schama, who managed to make his 'grand sweep' programme so utterly uninteresting when it could, and should, have been so much more ... don't even get me started on that.

 

[disgruntled h blocker]

WWII is very popular on the TV as there is so much footage available at good quality (16 or 35mm film).

There isn't much about WWI in comparision because of the increased cost of production (recreation etc).

One thing I can't bear a recent trend of telling history through the eyes of a by-stander, seeing how they are affected by it - making up some poxy story...

 

[Rangdo]

One thing I can't bear a recent trend of telling history through the eyes of a by-stander, seeing how they are affected by it - making up some poxy story...

Are eye-witness accounts not an important part of history then?

 

[disgruntled h blocker]

Sorry, I am referring to making up some poxy story and dramatising it...

Like 'John only had two slices of toast and a cup of tea before he went to the factory that was bombed'.

Endless filling - making up stories.

I am not 'against' eye-witness evidence etc, which is totally separate...

 

[Man of Harveys]

Thing is, "Nazi TV" (as the UK history channel has long been dubbed at Harveys Towers) never shows, say, The World At War, which was really the definitive WW2 TV programme - at least it was made at a time when many of the protagonists were still around to be interviewed. The Nazis: A Warning From History is very good and gets shown, to be fair.

But it is daft - if you didn't know better, it would be easy to get the impression from TV history that the Nazis had been around for most of history, rather than 13 years (and I'm not downplaying the repulsiveness of their deeds one jot).

An old housemate of mine was obsessed with it - for a while you couldn't walk through the front door without being assailed by some ludicrous speech by Goebbels, or the sound of a screeching plane crashing into the sea.